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Sunday, January 15, 2012

fade to red

At the match yesterday I was driving forward, arms fastened around the ball, when I felt it: a painful scrape moving inexorably toward the outer corner of my eye. I shut my eye tightly and felt the finger stop, digging right into the corner. Unbelievable. Nothing I could do at the moment and when the ruck was over I had no way of knowing who had done it.

Oh, and let me tell you about the scrums. My opposition kept punching my arm on the referee's "touch." Maybe she was excited but the only other time this has happened previously was against the same blue and white striped team, and that girl eventually, accidentally punched the side of my face. So lo and behold eventually this girl from the same team also "accidentally" punched the side of my face. And that was all it took.

I stood up in the middle of the referee's call. "Hit me again," I remember saying and then other things came out of my mouth. They probably weren't pleasant. I was seeing red, literally. The referee felt compelled to inform me that he was sorry, but he couldn't allow me to do whatever I was explicitly telling my opposition would happen when she hit me again. My face was burning; the gouge in the side of my face was mighty aggravated by the punch. I had to leave the match at the half, angry and bleeding.

Our team won with a bonus point. We didn't allow them a single point. By then I had cooled off, the adrenaline from the match giving way to weariness. I even managed to shake hands with all of the other team, even the one I knew had punched me, even when I was feeling suspicious about how only their team's front row managed to consistently pop their opposite number in the face. It was only after my shower when I looked into a mirror that the anger came back. A nasty cut runs from the middle of my cheek to a pit of missing flesh at the corner of my eye. If my unknown gouger had succeeded with that one more centimeter it would have been serious. As it is I am worried about a scar. I have been religiously applying Neosporin and cursing that blue and white bitch.